


Apocalypse Now

by orphan_account



Series: Apocalypse Now (& Later) [1]
Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Borsht, I started this in winter and don't feel like writing that back out again, Lots of arguments, M/M, Misgendering, Multiple Perspectives, Neopronouns, Repressed gayness, Slow Burn, actually good consent, against me! - Freeform, fluff if you squint, no beta we die like men, non-graphic scene of a character jacking off, references to gay conversion therapy, seriously these bitches are in each others hair at every possible moment, some throwing up but we're not going vomit coffin by king gizzard with it it's pretty toned down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25140097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “That ‘little queer’ was my best friend, you self absorbed prick. Just because you’re so caught up in your weird aryan narcissism doesn’t mean other people around you have to put their heads up their asses too. Don’t be nice to me when you think you have chance to make me change.”“First, the anarchist was definitely not just your best friend, and second, I’m not. I think it’s very good that you’re moving on emotionally and working on the alcoholism.”“I was not alcoholic! I had drinking problem, not severe addiction. And you have no right to only like me when it benefits you! I- fuck,” he turned around and retched into the kitchen sink.“Okay, whatever you want to name your problem, it’s pretty obvious that you’re not doing so well.” He reached out to pat the tankie’s back in a heterosexual bro way, but he cringed away from it.“Don’t touch me, asshole. I hate you.”“Fuck, fine. Do whatever you want. I’ll stay out of this mess.”“Good, leave me alone.”
Relationships: authleft/authright, authunity
Series: Apocalypse Now (& Later) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827667
Comments: 15
Kudos: 62





	1. Dead Friend

**Author's Note:**

> probably should preface this with the fact that i don't in any way agree with or endorse fascism & in fact i find it kind of funny to write a nazi realizing he's gay because, to put it in the words of some jackass on r/jreg, "the faggotry completely ruins any chance of a right-wing audience". fuck nazis.

“Jesus christ. You look like shit, I can’t believe you’re supposed to be a valuable ally. Get up. I need the couch.” said Authright.

“Oh fuck off. Leave me alone.” slurred the communist, barely intelligible from under the blanket he was wrapped in. Belatedly, he followed it up with a string of aggressive sounding but half-hearted Russian swear words. Empty vodka bottles had started to accumulate in his room, and there was one sitting on the coffee table by the couch he was lying on.

“You know how I consider alcohol the only non-degenerate intoxicant? I’m going to go back on that one. It’s not socially acceptable anymore,” said the nazi, thinking out loud. 

“I said fuck off,” replied Authleft. He turned to Authright, his face no longer obscured by the blanket. Tears streaked his cheeks, and his face was puffy and red. 

“Wow, you’re worse than I imagined you looking. Still don’t take the ushanka off, huh? The hat’s like your security blankie. Remembering your junkie boyfriend?” and, although it wasn’t any help at all, he added “don’t cry over him, he was a horrible degenerate anyways.”

“What does it matter? We fought, but I still loved quim. Still do. You won’t understand. Everything for you is about fucking perfect nuclear families.”

“You’d know more about nukes than, me, filthy commie.”

“Asshole. Bedroom policing the whole goddamn world. I can’t believe I agreed to work with you. What is there even to do? I miss quim, so much. More than your cold heart could ever know. You’re a whiny bitch.” He knows that these words should conjure a blow, too drunk to care if he gets one. He’s tall, and strong. He can take a goddamn punch.  
“Wow, you really call him that? Ridiculous. He’ll always be a man, no matter what bullshit _he_ cooks up about spectrums. Even if _he_ cuts it off, _he’ll_ never be anything more than a sad excuse for a _man_ , a true representation of what the Jews are doing to our white race.”

“отвали!” and he swayed to his feet, blanket wrapped around him, “Don’t say things like that! I can hear the fucking quotation marks around quis pronouns, you shitbag. I prefer tanks to bats, but I won’t hesitate to bash your fucking skull in if you talk about quim like that again!” The words, delivered through snot and tears, might have been intimidating, had Authleft not been struggling to keep his balance. Still, some fury penetrated the haze of vodka in his eyes.

“You know what? You aren’t worth my fucking time. I don’t even see why you’re here. Is your political ideology just reducing countries to drunkenness? I shouldn’t have agreed to spending time with your miserable ass.”

The nazi turned and left, the heels of his boots disappointingly silent on the carpeted living room floor. He wished that the drunken idiot had the courtesy to get shitfaced in his own room, instead of the living room. He’d just wanted to play Call of Duty. 

The communist clutched his vodka bottle in his right hand and the blanket wrapped around his shoulders in the other. He staggered back into his room and passed out on top of his unmade bed, the vodka bottle left open on his nightstand.

\---

The morning sun cracked through the blinds. It seemed to cut into Authleft’s brain like a knife. He groaned, tried to sit up, and then realized the terrible mistake he’d made. He managed to make it into the bathroom before his stomach turned inside out. Once not much else could come up, he staggered to his feet, squinting, his head throbbing. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off before falling asleep, he realized. _Disgusting. I can’t believe I’ve gotten this low. I’m supposed to be a strong, inspiring leader. Why can’t I just get over that little anarchist shit?_

He tried to find some clean clothes. There were none in his closet, hadn’t been any for a long time, but there didn’t seem to be anything clean-ish on the floor, either. Each day had blended into the last, another mess of self pity and drunken tears. “I’ll do better tomorrow,” he told himself, every day. He’d run out of shirts. To be more specific, he had worn all of the shirts on his floor at least twice, and there were now none that only smelled like sweat and not some combination of spilled food and vomit and sweat. He needed to go do his laundry. Even the thought of it felt like climbing a huge mountain. A mild yet overwhelming sense of sadness set in. _Did Lenin wear his own dirty shirts? Did he end every day piss drunk and crying over a trans catperson?_ The thought filled him with a deep sense of pity, somehow directed in at himself. _How did my life get so pathetic? I can at least do my laundry. Please let me be able to do my laundry._

FIlled with a miserable resolve, he pushed his clothes into a pile on the floor. It would be pointless to wear one of the shirts, it’d just make him smell bad. He was Russian, anyways. He didn’t get cold indoors. 

He felt weak already. How did the skinny guy he saw in the mirror still have abs? Some feature of his metabolism, he guessed. He might have some visible muscle, but he didn’t look good, either, not by any stretch of the imagination. He went back to the bathroom and attempted to look less… puffy. Face washed and teeth brushed, thinking of Daddy Marx watching him from heaven, he picked up his hamper and brought his clothes down to the laundry room.

\---

The libertarian had specifically instructed his small army of sexually dressed maids not to do a single thing for the other ideologies, so Authright was relegated to the absolute shame of washing his own clothes. Figuring nobody would be there in the morning, he’d intended to get up early to wash his things. Unfortunately, his willpower was lacking, and he only managed to get up once the sun had crept into his room. He couldn’t put the washing off, for fear that his aesthetics would start to repel conservative moderates if he slipped even a tiny bit. After all, skinheads may get the dirty work done, but they don’t persuade anyone to join ranks.

He tipped his clothes into the washer, carefully measured out the right amount of detergent, and cranked the knob to standard wash. Grateful nobody had caught him doing something that _should_ have been relegated to the duties of his tradwife, he turned to walk out of the room. Unfortunately, a shirtless communist disrupted his display of masculine insecurity. He was a lot better looking when he wasn’t drunk and crying, but the hangover was obvious. Alcohol seemed to radiate out of every pore in his body. For someone who had an average daily routine with equivalent liver effects to that of Prometheus, he was in freakishly good shape. 

_And he looked surprisingly handsome._

“Kulak, your clothes are in the wash, da?”

Desperately trying to look like he wasn’t creeping around, he managed to only get out “Um… yeah,” and it came in a voice that seemed to betray his shame, shaky. Weak. 

“I didn’t think you would know how to do your own washing. I would have thought your little… tradwife lady would have to do that for you.” 

_Yikes, he catches on quick._

“It is women’s work, but Libright specifically told his maids to never do anything for us, so I have to do it, very disappointingly.”

“Yes, well. Work of women doing your laundry is unpaid labor. Bad praxis to force someone to labor for no personal gain. Unless you are the state, that is.”

_This has held me up long enough. Being caught here is so embarrassing. I should have pretended I didn’t hear him come in. I’ve gotta get out._

“Look, I put my laundry into the washer. I’m gonna go back to my room. Don’t let Libright catch onto this, though. He’ll never let me live it down.”

“What? Live down you doing laundry? I do not understand you, kulak. Let me know when you move clothes to the dryer, so I can wash mine. I do not care if you tell Libright you saw me here, since I am not a capitalist jacking off to exploited labor.”

“Yeah, yeah. Fuck you too.” Authright turned and opened the door back out to the living room. He was very careful to shut it behind him. 

_Why was that so uncomfortable? I am not supposed to stutter. Anything that betrays weakness is bad optics, so why couldn’t I do any better than “uh… yeah”? God, this is awful. I can’t wait to go home, or take this out on some inferior centrist ideology. I don’t have a wife at home, of course, but there I can at least not get interrupted doing women’s work by some weird shirtless communist. Come to think of it, why wasn’t he wearing a shirt?_

_Strange man. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what goes on in his head._

Authright sat on the edge of his bed and examined his boots. They did not need polishing. His room was a mess of papers and clothes, disorganized and inefficient, but the flag of Nazi Germany hanging over his desk was free of wrinkles. He settled down to read one of his favorite books, the Turner Diaries, but something kept tugging at his brain. He just couldn’t focus. He kept drifting back to his run in with Authleft in the laundry room. Eventually, the washer finished his clothes, and he rushed to move them to the dryer, filled with a paradoxical amount of shame and strange excitement. 

Carefully, he walked to Authleft’s room, and knocked on the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the turner diaries is a book about a fascist revolution that's both so self aware about the fact that fascism creates a miserable dystopian world and so badly written that if it adhered to a political ideology any less miserable it would be a joke. yes i'm a thoughtslime fan how did you know


	2. How Low

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> incredibly self indulgent here: all the chapter titles are from songs by the band Against me!

After the Nazi left the laundry room, Authleft searched through his hamper once more for a shirt that didn’t smell bad enough to gag on. Authright had seemed so uncomfortable, and although he may hate him, he was at least going to give him some space. Authoritarian regimes fight hard and anger easily, and he knew better than to go picking a fight, not today. Though he was taller, he was also hungover and hadn’t seen a gym in long enough that he probably couldn’t hold a fight. 

After eating an incredible amount of food, and taking a shot (just one! Hair of the dog that bit you! It’s normal for Russians!) he returned to his room. He’d intended on cleaning his room, but he needed some music or something. His internal monologue was getting antsy. 

_ All this music sucks. I’m not exactly having a glorious communism will win moment here. I’m not leading the revolution. I’m picking up from a mess I got myself into.  _

One does not pick up a multitude of vodka bottles while listening to someone sing about glory. He needed something angry. He needed the sort of shit Anarkitty liked. Maybe that was the secret to how qui liked it - always being on the come-down or hangover of some drug definitely changes your perspective on what counts as quality music.

_ I’m sure qui left some of quis things here. I don’t remember seeing quim coming around to pick anything up. I know qui has records, I know what some of them sound like. I hope they’re still there. _

Hoping to find something to listen to, or maybe just procrastinating on facing the worse side of him shown in his room, he ventured into Anarkitty’s room. 

He’d seen it before, they’d shared the space. It was the same as before, completely untouched. The creased polyester trans flag hung crooked on the wall above the same bookshelf as before, more filled with a disorganized collection of vinyl records than with books. There was still dirty laundry in quis hamper. He knew that quee wasn’t dead, but it felt like it. The room was filled with loose ends. It felt both final and unfinished. The air hung silent and stale. Somehow, the respectful thing seemed to be to step lightly and quietly. The Anarchist had never been quiet or light-footed, but it felt wrong to disturb the room. 

Paging through the vinyls in the shelf (not alphabetized, some of the spines didn’t even face out), he piled some albums on the floor next to him. 

Just in case the anarchist came back (he knows qui could. He wishes qui would), he decided to put all the records spine out. Maybe not alphabetized, but being able to actually see what’s there would be nice. 

\---

Commie’s door was silent.

_ God, he’s probably passed out drunk again. He acts all tough, but he’s fucking pathetic. _

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Look. I put my things in the dryer. If you’re conscious, you can wash yours now.” he yelled into the door.

The door continued to not answer. 

He tested the knob and found that it was unlocked. Peeking his head in, he realized the room was empty. Every horizontal surface had at least one vodka bottle on it, including some in truly precariously balanced situations. He closed the door as quietly as he could.

_ If he’s not in his room, and he’s not in the living room or kitchen, where is he? We all agreed not to violate the NAP, so he’s not gonna be trashing the ancap’s room. I guess that leaves one last place… Crying in his tranny ex-boyfriend’s room. Class act, that man.  _

Down the hallway, he faced the sticker-covered door, which proclaimed repeatedly how much qui would have loved to smash his skull in. He gently turned the knob, hoping it wouldn’t make any sound, that nobody would catch him if Authleft wasn’t in there. Thankfully, the communist was inside. The place was even more gross, though. Dirty clothes, unidentified drugs, zines, and various other forms of degenerate detritus covered the floor. Sitting in front of a bookshelf was the communist, carefully filing away vinyl LPs. Surprisingly, he wasn’t crying, and Authright couldn’t see any vodka bottles nearby. 

_ He’s still fucking shirtless. What is the deal with him and not wearing a shirt? Is it like, a slav thing?  _

“What are you doing in here? Cleaning up his things?”

“Check your pronouns, and also, no. Just putting the records spine out. Qui couldn’t even be bothered to put them facing the right way. I figured I’d do nice thing, if qui ever comes back to appreciate it.”

“That’s… caring of you. The real question is whether any of those albums are good. Some guy screaming about degeneracy really doesn’t do for me what it seemed to have done for Libleft.”

“Oh, I have no idea. I figured I’d borrow some just so I wasn’t cleaning to songs about communist glory. This is not a time for the songs of the proletarian revolution, you know? I am just trying to put everything back together.”

“So you decided to borrow punk music from your ex? Gonna go from alcoholic to stoner? Get your crust ushanka on?”

“No crust ushanka, but you know anarkitty has a bong shaped like Obama’s head?”

“What!? I could have sworn that he’d gone on a rant about how much he hated Obama to us at dinner once. Something about a conservative pretending to be a neoliberal?”

Authright looked around the room, and he saw what could maybe be it… Attempting to not step on anything (a failing mission) he slowly made his way to the pile and pulled it out. Sure enough, it was a ceramic bong shaped like the 44th. 

_ Wow. What the fuck? Even for a degenerate, Authleft had terrible taste in partners. _

“Pronouns, and da. Quee hated the man. But there is something… particularly ironic about smoking out of a bong shaped like head of a man you hate.”

“Maybe so, but that’s certainly a degenerate form of spite. I’m not out here with a Karl Marx flask.”   
“Come on, if you’d just read Das Kapital you’d know he’s right.”

_ Fuck it. I don’t want to argue. The self improvement thing is good and admirable. I’ll just be nice, and maybe if I’m nice, he’ll stop spending all his time drunk and crying on the couch, and I can play CoD more often. _

“Let’s just agree to disagree. I don’t feel like a fight today.”

“Good. Me neither.”

“So... you’re gonna get into Black Flag?”

“I don’t know. I have heard some Anarkitty played for me, but never remembered the names, so I am just… what’s the word… spitballing here. First I saw this one,” he said, holding up Against Me!’s  _ Reinventing Axl Rose _ , he continued “and I liked the stars on the cover, but I looked at the songs and it was all about being anarchist. So, maybe not listen. Then this one by the same band,” he said, with  _ Searching for a Former Clarity  _ in his hands “since it had the right title for how I feel and no songs named about anarchism. Maybe the title track is bad, though, I don’t know yet.”

“Don’t think you’d know much about palm trees, commie.”

“I don’t, but it cannot be whole album about palm trees. I’m not done looking for more music. Maybe I should listen to the old, important music. Anarkitty always talked about how important Black Flag and Dead Presidents was.”

“It’s Dead Kennedys, not Dead Presidents. Don’t ask how I know that, though, I hate them.”

“Well, I hated most of this music the first time I heard it, and look at me now.”

“People do change. But I cannot stand punk. I work with skinheads sometimes, and even when it’s not pure degeneracy I can’t abide it. Don’t start losing your state, though, red and green turn into an awful brown when mixed together.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“People always get that wrong. They think that because the government is bad now, all government is bad.”

“Exactly! State is important to maintain order and equality! Sometimes it does bad things, yes, but they are not so important when the society works!”

“You understand! It’s very important to have a strong state for maintaining… order.”   
“We are not so different, you and me. I mean, we are very different. But also, we are kind of similar.”

“And there’s nobody else for you to unify with anymore, now that you’re single again. It’s just us against the NAP.”

“How will he enforce stupid NAP, anyway? With police? With a state? People will just get better at stealing.”

“Ugh, I know. He may hate libtards, but that does not make him any less stupid.”

“You, you get me. Anarkitty never understood theory, but I liked quem. I could not ever imagine liking ancap.”

“Ugh, I know. And honestly, the maids are really degenerate. So tasteless.”

“It’s pure bourgeois decadence.”

“So horrible. You only need one woman to wash your clothes, not 9 in sexual outfits!”

“Da, but speaking of chores, I am going to do laundry now. Wandering around with no shirt raises questions, even though I’m not cold.”   
“Yeah, questions like ‘did you sell your pants to buy coke again?’” and at that, they both burst out laughing. The ancap had done that more than once, because it turns out his designer slacks cost a whole lot, and that he didn’t mind their absence much as long as he got another line out of the deal. 

“His only thoughts are what monkey brain wants next, it’s hilarious.”

“God, that man has no morals. Enjoy your cleanup.”

“I will not, but thank you anyway. And thank you for letting me know to move my clothes.”


	3. Black me out

Authleft reflected on the conversation as he left, LPs under arm.

_ That was… strange. First conversation I’ve had since Anarkitty left without it ending in shouting or crying or another bottle of vodka that night. I guess you can enjoy anyone’s company after a while. I miss having friends. I feel so alone, and I guess now I have to face it. _

After he left the LPs in his room, he went back to the laundry room. It was small, and (being in the basement) the coldest part of the house. The coolness felt right against his skin. He hadn’t noticed it much, but upstairs was hot and stuffy, and the ushanka hadn’t made the situation any better. 

_ I’m so tired of feeling so miserable and pitiful. It’s so much easier to not think, but that doesn’t exactly end well.  _

He dumped his disgusting clothes into the washer, cranked the knob, poured out the detergent. Dropping the lid on the mess felt right, like some sense of closure had settled into the room. 

Briefly, he took off his ushanka and carded his hands through his hair, then jammed it back on, composed himself, and prepared himself to face his room. 

\---

Coming back into that stuffy, rancid, disgusting room felt like voluntarily descending into hell. Before he could start cleaning, he needed to get his brain moving in a direction other than self pity. Music… Grabbing an album off the top of the stack, he put it on his turntable and turned the volume up loud enough that it’d be just like Anarkitty was there with him. The first strums of Miami started up, and he knew what he had to do. He’d grabbed a trash bag from the kitchen on his way back, and now he started to pick up the bottles. 

_ I suppose punk is an acquired taste. I don’t understand half of these lyrics or metaphors, but… Damn, if I can’t relate to feeling hopeless and disconnected from life. And it’s nice to feel less alone for a moment.  _

The lyrics cut through to him at some level. Maybe he didn’t care about some band getting called posers, but it was the first time he’d felt like any music really got him as a person, not just an agent of the revolution. You can’t spend your life looking up from below and not start to feel bad about yourself at some level. Well, maybe nothing fully cut through until How Low. 

_ Do we all make the same empty promises to ourselves? Do we all try to make up to ourselves that we make bad choices, all break those vows before we even know? How are we all so connected by being miserable and feeling alone? _

“How low can you go before you can’t turn around?” It felt like only a few more nights like the ones he’d lived every day. 

_ I’m so lonely. I just want a friend, and if I can’t have a friend I want to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t hate my fucking guts. I miss quem with every fucking breath I take.  _

Eventually he paused the music and took his bag of bottles out to the kitchen recycling. It didn’t fit into the bin. That meant he had to go outside to the dumpster, shirtless, hauling a bag of vodka bottles. 

_ I must be a goddamn sight to see.  _

In the most snide and irritating voice Authleft could imagine, a “What’cha got there?” interrupted his walk. The Ancap. 

“Nothing important. It’s trash.” the bottles in the bag clinked a little as he continued walking.

“Ooh, is that your old vodka? I was wondering how you were financing that habit, did you finally go broke and get dry?”

“No.” Authleft scowled.

“No? Run out of space to put them? Sold your shirt for another bottle?”

“No as in I got tired of my own bullshit. Not that you’d know anything about self-improvement, asshole.”

“Those are fighting words… Remember the NAP? And you know I’ve gotten off some drugs before, right?”

“Only when they got too low class for your bourgeois enjoyment. Now get the door for me, or get out.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do either.” Libright’s face was filled with the most disgustingly smug smile.

Before Authleft could clap back, Authright walked in. “Cut the shit. You’re just being a dick for the sake of getting under his skin. It’s not a good look on you.”

“Oh and I suppose you’d know all about what a good look on me is, homo.” Libright said. 

“You two are fucking immature. There is nothing wrong with being gay, unless you are also bourgeois.” He freed up a hand, flung the door open, walked into the cuttingly bright world outside, and slammed it behind him. 

_ Fucking hell, my head hurts. I can’t come in and let the kulak win, but this sucks. I wish I had his sleazy-ass sunglasses.  _

He trudged around the house, bag in hand. It was winter, the sun glinted off the snow, the air was cold and sharp, and his breath puffed clouds into it. Thankfully, the path around back had been shoveled out. 

_ And why was Authright jumping to my defense? We agreed not to pick a fight earlier, but that didn’t mean he had to help me out. _

Eventually, he got to the dumpster. The lid was plastic, so he didn’t get stuck to it when he opened it up. He heaved the bottles in. It felt like a huge weight off his shoulders, a change in something, a way to show that he was breaking the cycle of misery he’d been stuck in so long.

He walked back to the house, hands empty, feeling free. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why yes i've been working on this fic for months on and off and started it in february, how could you tell? no i'm not writing it back into summer. not only am i lazy it also makes tankie's shirtlessness less weird


	4. Searching for a Former Clarity

Authleft pulled on a shirt, still warm from the dryer and sat down on his bed with the pile of clean clothes. He didn’t fold them, just tossed them into piles. Shirts, pants, button-downs to hang up, socks, and so on. He walked across the floor and didn’t need to avoid vodka bottles or piled stained and dirty clothes. He felt strangely weak. His hands shook as he hung up his button-downs.   
It was 3 pm, by the clock on the wall.  
I’m not sure if I thought it was earlier in the day, or just that I wouldn’t start going into withdrawal this soon. I could take a shot to stave it off, but, wait, I threw out my vodka. Last time I drank was this morning. No going back on this one, unless I plan on going to the convenience store while I’m shaking to buy vodka. I’m not sacrificing my shame for that. I’m not going that low again, I’m not.   
He found the webmd page for alcohol withdrawal, and read through it, each bullet point tying his stomach into a tighter and tighter knot.  
Fuck, this is gonna be bad. I guess I’ll take some antacids so that throwing up won’t suck as bad. It’s different when you’re not drunk. God, I hope I don’t hallucinate. I could do something so stupid, I could fuck it up so bad.   
He cleaned up to the best of his abilities, put on one of his own records, and turned the volume down from his punk adventures earlier in the day.   
I actually didn’t hate the music. This is bugging me. Just sitting here with some glorious music swelling in the background, waiting for my body to start falling apart.   
Hands shaking violently, he took the record off the turntable. Trying to be as gentle as he could, he tipped the album he’d been listening to earlier out of its sleeve. Keeping the volume low, it was much better than the internationale.   
Only a few songs later, the overstimulation crept in. He’d never had a panic attack before.   
OH FUC K OH NO. EVERYTHING IS GOING SO FAS T. Why is everything so loud. SO LOUd. My brain is too fast.   
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. It felt like an earthquake. The shakes were stronger and his thoughts came too quick to process. Incoherent, they raced each other through his head, bouncing off the inside of his skull. His breaths were fast and shallow, the clean shirt from only an hour ago now sweaty.   
Too hot sweaty too hot ERGh no HAT no SHIRT yuck   
He ran to the bathroom, and, for the second time that day, threw up. The day was ending as it had started. Him, shirtless in the bathroom, heaving his guts out. 

\---

Authleft gripped the kitchen counter for dear life the next morning. Or was it afternoon? He didn’t care enough to check.  
“You alright? You aren’t looking great.”  
“I mean, I spent the whole night shaking and vomiting, so no. But I will eat something, at least. Bread, rice. Easy foods.”  
“Withdrawal sucks, that’s a good plan.”  
“Kulak, why are you so nice all of a sudden? We go from you calling me degenerate with a security blankie to you suddenly acting like my friend. Do you want something from me?”  
“Oh, well, I admire the attempts at self improvement. The sooner you forget that little queer, the better. And alcohol withdrawal is really hard.”  
“That ‘little queer’ was my best friend, you self absorbed prick. Just because you’re so caught up in your weird aryan narcissism doesn’t mean other people around you have to put their heads up their asses too. Don’t be nice to me when you think you have chance to make me change.”  
“First, the anarchist was definitely not just your best friend, and second, I’m not. I think it’s very good that you’re moving on emotionally and working on the alcoholism.”  
“I was not alcoholic! I had drinking problem, not severe addiction. And you have no right to only like me when it benefits you! I- fuck,” he turned around and retched into the kitchen sink.   
“Okay, whatever you want to name your problem, it’s pretty obvious that you’re not doing so well.” He reached out to pat the tankie’s back in a heterosexual bro way, but he cringed away from it.  
“Don’t touch me, asshole. I hate you.”   
“Fuck, fine. Do whatever you want. I’ll stay out of this mess.”  
“Good, leave me alone.”

\---

Did he really mean it? I know he was sick, probably not thinking clearly, but he can’t hate me. I don’t want him to hate me. I feel kind of bad for him. he’s got nobody here to talk to other than me, and I obviously pissed him off.   
I guess I do know why he cared so much about ancom. Love blinds you. He has bad taste, but I guess you can’t always bring your brain into it. It’s nice that he cared about someone that much.   
I hope he didn’t mean it. I hope he wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t know why I care, but I do. In a way, I feel bad he has to do this alone. There’s not much I could do for him other than get him water and light food, but still, going into withdrawal alone is horrible. I hope he doesn’t have hallucinations. That would be the worst part. Sick, dazed, alone, and confused.   
I don’t know why I care so much about him. We’ve barely been on speaking terms for a day, but being alone is so horrible. I hope I didn’t fuck this up.

\---

Tankie staggered back to his room. The shaking had started again, even though he thought it’d been gone for good earlier.   
Well, I’ve gone and made this all so much worse. I snapped at the one person who didn’t hate me here, even if it was temporary, and now I’m gonna be alone for however much longer it takes to get out of withdrawal. I could get worse, I could need help. And I can’t get it if my only non-enemy won’t talk to me.   
The anxiety came in waves, his brain seizing up like a train with the emergency brake pulled, panic then calm, panic then calm. His skin prickled and crawled intermittently. The worst of the nausea started to pass. By dinner, he was starving. Not facing the other extremists wasn’t a reality anymore because with nothing in his stomach, he had to come out and eat. 

\---

“Hey.” said the Nazi.   
“Hi.” said Authleft. He went to get a slice of bread.   
“You doing better?”  
“Okay. No hallucination yet.”  
“Hopefully never.”  
“Da.”  
“Only gonna eat bread?”  
“I have not eaten in nearly 40 hours. I do not want to throw up.”  
“Fair.”  
“Mhm.”  
Fuck. I wanted to make up. Maybe I should offer some soup or something. Wait, would soup make the nausea worse? Do we even have soup? I don’t know. Either way, it doesn’t seem like he wants an apology right now.   
“Nazi?”  
“Yeah?”  
“If I start having seizure, please call a ambulance.”  
“Y-Yeah. Of course.”  
“Thank you.”  
That’s freaky. I guess it’s good he knows what alcohol withdrawal can do to you. I hope the carbs are helping. I should apologize.  
“Tankie?”  
“Yes?”   
And it was like a pit had formed in his stomach and swallowed all his words. “Never mind, it wasn’t important.”  
“Okay.” Tankie scowled a little and went back to slowly tearing up and eating his second slice of white bread.   
Dammit. God fucking damn it. Why couldn’t I have just apologized and moved on? I don’t want him to hate me.   
The communist finished with his bread, and looked up at Authright. He smiled lightly,  
“I am going back to my room now. Have a good night.” Or maybe he didn’t smile so much as stop scowling. He’d eaten the bread with such a weirdly intense focus, so anything other than that face looked fairly positive.   
I hope that means he forgives me. He didn’t just leave. He said good night, too. I think I still owe him an apology.   
The interaction left him feeling a little lighter. He had not ruined everything. 


	5. Pretty Girls (The Mover)

Authright took a deep breath and knocked on Authleft’s door. 

“Come in.” 

Nervously, he did. 

“Fascist? I thought I…” his voice trailed off. “Never mind. It is good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you too. I’m sorry for insulting ancom and calling you an alcoholic. I don’t understand the whole nonbinary thing, and I honestly don’t care a lot, but I’m sorry for being mean to you.”

“I mean, it wasn’t exactly one-sided.”

“Mm, I guess not.” He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Tankie sat on the bed, cross legged. 

“You can sit down, if you want. Just take papers off my chair, you can put them on the floor.” Thankful to not be uncomfortably hanging around in the middle of the room, he cleared off the pile and took a seat. 

“So, um, how are you doing? Are you... feeling less sick?”

“Da, I am doing much better. I am still little shaky, but I did not throw my bread up.”

“That’s always good. Hey, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

Authleft nodded. 

_ I don’t want to go. I just want company. To not get in an argument. Guess I’ll ask what I’ve been thinking.  _

“What happened between you and ancom?”

Authleft’s face crumpled a little. 

_ Oh no. I asked about the wrong thing. _

“Qui was my best friend. We stuck together, you and ancap argue so much. We weren’t like that. We were very close; we talked a lot, and I… well, were were more than friends. But it doesn’t matter what we were, because I miss quem. So much.”

“Yeah, it’s so hard when people leave. It’s like, a rejection of you. Especially when it’s because she found some hot chad to go destroy the sanctity of the aryan race with.”

“Well, the aryan race is a myth, but you are right on the rejection of you feeling. I know qui didn’t leave out of choice, how could qui? Qui will get better and come back.”

“I don’t think anarkitty’s coming back. We are trying to eliminate the center for a reason, they may be spineless, but apoliticism has a certain appeal.”

“Da, I guess so. I just… qui was important. I want quem to come back, you know?”

“Nobody ever wants someone to leave them. Monogamy is important, you know? Even if you are a gay degenerate.”

“That is a little mean, but I guess you’re right about not ever wanting people to leave. You know, I looked in quis eyes one morning and I realized I wanted to spend rest of my life with quem. Now I can’t.”

“Grief is temporary. It’s just another emotion.” the words were delivered a with a slight wobble. He didn’t mean it dismissively, they both knew. 

“I know, it just hurts right now.” he paused, picking his words, “Nazi, what happened to your wife? For as long as we’ve been preparing the centricide, you’ve been away from home.”

_ Oh fuck. He caught me. I said too much, revealed my power level, and I’m a lot weaker than I made myself out to be. _

“She, uh.. She…”

“Doesn’t exist?”

Authright just nodded sourly. He’d been caught. 

“Yeah, I figured. You don’t ever call her or talk to her.”

“Well, it’s important for image, and also to make ancap jealous. He just needs to be put in his place sometimes, you know?”

“Oh, believe me, I do.”

“He’s so irritating. Always with the drugs or sex or antisocial behavior. The worst.”   
“I only agree with him on economics, and even then, it’s only barely. Other than that, he and his shrill little voice and golden fedora can get out.”

“I don’t even agree with him on that!”

“The Kulak is certainly not helping either of us being around…”

“Well, he does make some people join me, but he is also a degenerate through and through. The only thing he wouldn’t do for money is abandon capitalism.”

“But he would say he did if it got people to give him money.”

“What was that that ancom always said? The moral backbone of…”

“A chocolate eclair?”   
“Yes!” 

Authleft’s stomach grumbled. 

“Are you hungry? We can go eat, if you want.”

“Da, that sounds good.”

\--- 

Alone in his room, their conversation over, Authleft started to feel loneliness creeping in. It was calm, the room was clean. Everything was set in place, all of Libleft’s records about being a disaster put back into quis shelf. With nothing else to do, his brain started to pull back to Authright. 

_ That was nice of him to come and apologize to me. I felt bad about it too, I’m glad we both don’t want to hate each other. I’m kind of starting to lean on him. There’s nobody else here and it’s lonely with no friends.  _

_ I wonder what Ancom would think of him and me. Well, I don’t have to wonder, really. I know. Qui’d hate him, and I know why, too. It’s just that he’s really not that bad when you get to know him.  _

_ I think about him a lot. I wonder about how he’s doing. Does he think of me? He’s been taking up more of my mind lately. I just run back to him. It’s weird. _

_ He’s got his peculiarities, that’s for sure. He doesn’t have a wife. I wonder if he ever had a girlfriend. He said something about some girl leaving him, but I don’t know if I can trust that, either. He’s really secretive with his relationships.  _

_ If ancom were here, qui’d say he was gay and repressed.  _

_ No. Qui’s not here. I miss quem, but quee’s not coming back. I can’t keep pretending qui’ll be out there in the living room, that I’ll wake up one morning with a hot pink anarchy A spray painted on my door and know everything is fine again. Qui’s gone. There’s nothing I can do about it. Honestly, the spot qui filled in my life is getting filled in by Authright now. I miss quem, but I need to move on.  _

_ I wanted to wake up and not feel so alone. I’ve got one friend left, Authright. I wonder what he’s doing now. Does he think of me, too? Now that I think about it, you know, he’s not that bad. He’s funny, even though he’s sometimes wrong, and strangely nice. I wonder if he’s changing. I know he probably only likes me because I don’t like Jews (which, to be fair, it’s not just jewish people, it’s every religion) and I’m not a wishy-washy anarchist, but it’s okay. We’re friends. Are we friends? Whatever we are, it’s nice. I enjoy it.  _

He got up. 

_ I wonder if he thinks of me.  _

Walked across his room to the bathroom. 

_ He’s kind of cute.  _

Vacantly brushed his teeth.

Leaned against the wall as the realization set in. 

_ Fuck. I’m in love. О черт! Shit! _

He took off his hat. Washed his face. Walked out to his bed. Put the ushanka on his nightstand. The actions were empty, not even habits yet, just what he knew what he was supposed to do.

_ Only chance I had of not being alone while we get rid of the centrists. Fucking hell. And I ruined it all.  _

He sat down on the edge of his bed to take his shoes off and then stripped down to go to sleep. Though he felt sure rest wouldn’t come for him that night, he tried anyways. As he finally started to drift off some time after midnight, one last thought pushed into his mind. 

_ I will never think of this again. _

He thought he meant it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alexa, teach me how to swear in russian


	6. Walking is Still Honest

“Morning.” said the Nazi, flatly. 

“Hello.” replied Authleft as he punched in buttons on the coffee maker, but no coffee came out. “Eugh. Planned obsolescence. Disgusting.”

“Ancap bought that last week.”

“Capitalism truly must be in its last stages. There is no way this thing is new and broken already!”

“I’ll see if I can get it to work.” Authright left his breakfast on the table and walked to stand at the counter. He gently swiped Tankie’s hand off the machine (he was still so sure that pressing a different set of buttons would fix it) and replaced the coffee pod. 

“Do you have to buy new pod every time? Is so wasteful.”

“That’s the free market at work. The coffee isn’t even all that great.”

Tankie took his mug out from under the spout and tried a sip. “You’re right... Complete waste.”

“Well, it gets the caffeine in ya.”

“Da. Anyway, so how are you?”

“Well, I’m doing alright at Call of Duty, so that’s kind of the latest.”

“Good to hear.”

“You?”

“Re-reading Kapital. I’m getting so much new meaning out of it now.”   
“I don’t think it’s supposed to be a self help book…”

“Sure, sure, but you need to read closer! It is the greatest ideological masterpiece ever created, how could it not be important to humans personally?”

“You know what, just, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Oh come on, you would learn a lot if you’d just read it.”

  
“Absolutely no. Nuh-uh. Nope.”

  
“You’re worse than Ancom. I never could get quem to read any theory…”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he chuckled a little and returned back to his breakfast. 

“You two never did talk much.”

“We fought a lot, whatever that’s worth.”

“Hah! Too much. There was never any peace around here when you two were near each other.”

“They were so wrong. Hilariously incorrect. Like with all the queer stuff, you know? Pure degeneracy.”

Some part of Authleft’s heart sunk a bit at the word degeneracy. He tried to cram it away again, not let the thorn stab any deeper into him than it already had. 

“Sure.” His coffee seemed waterier than before. He finished it in silence, stood up from the table, and gently placed a hand on Nazi’s shoulder. “I am going to my room. Enjoy your food.”

The identitarian looked up at him. He looked soft, less hateful than normal. “Alright. Enjoy Kapital.”

“Thank you.”

Returning to the last pickings of eggs, he felt the memory of the hand on his shoulder flick through his mind, the touch as he batted Commie’s hand off the coffee machine, over and over. 

\---

_ I can’t get him off my mind. I feel so alone here. To Ancap I’m just a way to circumvent the NAP, another tool to use and dispose of, not a person. To the ancom, I was a vent for anger. I should feel divided from the communist. I should hate him, he’s just as far from me as the ancap. But he keeps running through my mind, constantly. It’s irritating, I hate it, I hate that I’m always thinking about him. I hate that I’m not in control of my own thoughts. He was terrible, he fell for a degenerate, he’s weak, destroying the race, and I know these things but I cannot stop with this. Just because I have the knowledge doesn’t mean I feel it in my heart.  _

_ Infatuation, obsession, I want him to talk to me, to laugh with me, to keep me company, I feel like my stomach drops out when he talks to me, it’s not friendship, it’s the symptoms of a disease.  _

_ Oh god.  _

_ I’m sick. I’m a queer, I can’t be, I can’t let this enemy have gone so far behind my defenses that he destroyed my purity, I can’t be a degenerate, I can’t let this happen to me. There has to be a cure, there has to be a way to avoid this, something to get him OUT OF MY HEAD for once and for all.  _

_ Fuck. I can’t believe this happened to me. I was so strong, and now who am I? I can’t be a great leader, can’t be a lover, can’t be who I thought I was. This is disgusting. I’m weak. _

_ I need to find a way out, fast. Before something else caves, before I give in. And that would disgust me, but who knows how strong I am now? I thought I was better than this, now it’s come for me, if I fell this low I could fall lower.  _

_ Horrible.  _

He cried. Alone. And the aloneness bore down into him. His chest felt hollow, like the most fundamental parts of his body had imploded, and self pity oozed through his every cell. His heart and his mind, what he’d once thought so strong and glorious, had betrayed him.

Sleep reached out its fingers for him some time later. His eyes still stung in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was supposed to see against me live on their last tour and let me tell you the pit would have gone SO HARD to this song


	7. Violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, an incredibly melodramatic song about hoping nobody finds you cross dressing? yeah, i put it in my fanfiction about a gay nazi falling in love with a marxist leninist. we're getting all molotov–ribbentrop up in here bitches

“You look tired.” said Ancap, looking up from his phone, latte in hand.

“I didn’t sleep well last night. Bad dreams, you know.”   
“What about?”

“Um. The uh, the Jews.”

“Oh, ok. Makes sense. You should try melatonin, really knocks you out each night. I know a guy who can get you some.”

“No. I do not want to be ingesting god knows what just in order to address a perfectly natural problem!”

“What? Yeah, I mean, I guess. It’s perfectly safe. Natural, really. Why are you so pissy?”

“Never mind. It’s. It’s fine. Forget what I said.”

“Damn. Okay. If you insist.”

“Morning, you two.”

“Oh, you. Tell me you aren’t taking the same bitch pills he is.” said Ancap, pointing over his shoulder at the identitarian. 

“What? I heard you, you know! I just didn’t sleep well last night!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“What is all this about? Did you and the Nazi get in a fight again?” 

“No, I mean, I don’t get in fights. He’d be smoke if we got into a fight.”

After realizing he was getting dragged back into the conversation whether he wanted it or not, Authright turned. “Pffff, no I wouldn’t. Besides, you’ve never had to fight before because of your NAP, you wouldn’t come out on top if we did.”

“Would you please stop arguing for minute? I don’t even know what this is about yet!” 

This did not prompt the response he wanted.

“He’s being a dick for no reason.”

“He’s acting like a little bitch,” they said, voices tangled in unison. 

“Okay, okay, so you are basically mad because you don’t like each other. This isn’t a fight over something real?”

“No, it is about something real, that ‘bad dream’ he’s talking about keeping him up was obviously not about the Jews.”

“Ugh, no it was  _ definitely _ about the Jews.”

“You see! That was even more suspicious!”

“You two are like little children. Stop pointing fingers. And Kulak, I notice you aren’t using the coffee maker the rest of us are. Can you buy a better one?”

“No can do, buy a nice coffee machine if you want one so badly.”

“You know my government rations don’t cover that, Ancap!”   
“And that’s your problem.”

“You know what?” said the tankie, nodding at his fellow authoritarian, “I agree, he is acting like little bitch. I am going to leave now. You two are insufferable.”

“Fine, I won’t miss you.”   
“Cry harder, Kulak.”

“Jeez. Can’t figure out what’s wrong with that guy.”

“What, no, he is fine. Annoying but not that bad. Not like the degenerate was.”   
“Yeah, okay, fair. I mean, at least he talks in a normal male register.”   
“Fucking hell, yeah.”

“So what was that dream about?”   
“None of your business. Even if it wasn’t what I said it was, you’re not entitled to knowing what’s inside my head.”

“Let me ask you something.”   
“As long as it’s not about being a bitch.”   
“No.” 

“Promising start.”

“Do you remember how we got here?”

\---

Authright checked the lock on his room another time. He knew it was locked, or at least it had been the last 3 times he checked, but the shame propelled him to check again.

_ At least it’ll keep the thoughts away. And I’m not a Christian, it won’t damn my eternal soul. It’s sin and perversion and degeneracy, but a sacrifice to avoid that in so much greater of a quantity.  _

_ I’ll just think about girls. Women. Good, white, pure, aryan women. With big tits. I think I like that? _

He unbuckled his belt and slowly pulled it off. Every motion was done with the quiet reverence of some unholy ritual; this was not a moment to finish with and discard. 

_ I can still go back. I don’t have to do this.  _

But he wanted to. He unbuttoned his slacks and left them on the floor with his belt. 

_ A face, a beautiful face. Smiling, a light dusting of freckles across the nose. Big boobs, squishy, thin but with lithe muscles and a set of abs, NO, a cute floral dress, and she spins and it flies up, she’s all flustered and embarrassed and red in the face, underneath it she’s got a hard dick, NO! Her hair’s pulled back, held under a big, fuzzy hat... with a red star pin in the middle, NoNo NO no EW _

He pulled his hand away in disgust. He was hard, but it wasn’t right. But he was horny and wanted to get off. 

_ Just this once. One time. I’ll let myself do it. NEVER AFTER, not a single time after this.  _

_ His hands tracing my stomach, leaning in over me for a kiss, my hands rubbing along his abs, soft skin and hard muscles. His hands, his mouth, face, god, just  _ **_him_ ** _.  _

He came. And then the clarity hit him like a brick to the face.

_ Oh god, what the fuck have I done? Maybe I made some progress trying to fix things, maybe I could have saved myself but everything is so much worse now, and it’s all my fault. I could have not, I could have resisted.  _

Shame struck him like a knife, coiled a python into his stomach. He practically ran across his room to the bathroom and turned the shower to full cold, letting the water shock his flushed skin.

_ I deserve this. I ruined myself this way, I sank this low of my own accord. I’m disgusting.  _

The cold sunk into his bones, chilled him so deeply. The punishment felt so right. He shook with the cold, his body racked with sobs. Hot tears rolled down his face. 

_ This is what I get. _

\---

The first page of search results was all liberal bullshit. By the second he’d finally found someone who wasn’t advocating against conversion therapy, but the website was about someone who had died in 2017. He did still sell books, though, and the APA’s statement about psychology becoming a field rife with liberal ideology and concealment of the truth sounded promising. But there wasn’t a single link to a practicing therapist. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to ever find someone else to fix him. He’d have to do it himself. 

So he did it. He ordered a book, and paid for the fastest shipping he could.

Were he a religious man, he’d have prayed for it to get there on time and for the advice in it to work. He wasn’t. So he sat there, stewing in self pity, desperate for the one lifeline that could  _ maybe _ get him out to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna post the last chapter soon i swear, i've rewritten the ending like 5 times and i just haven't fucking gotten it right yet   
> (no. they don't fuck. i can make them fuck in an add-on chapter because i wrote like 3/4 of that scene but it's not the hardcore smut this fandom generally hosts, it's some pretty dysfunctional gay shit. but no. that's not how it's gonna end.)


	8. First High of the Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the first writing project i've actually finished so congratulations to canadian politics twink jregory for inspiring me thus. sorry to keep yall waiting on an update.

There was a knock on the identitarian's bedroom door. 

“What is it?”

“The mail came,” said the communist, walking in. “Is this yours? From the institute for… Sexual reparative therapy? Are you trying to make someone a heterosexual?”

He flew up from his chair, “WHAT!? NO. THAT’S NOT. IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS.”

“Nazi, are you gay?”

“NO.”

“You sure?” the communist said, yanking the package away as the other man grabbed at the box.

“Yes. Now give it back!”

“Fine. But you know you can talk to me if you are. I won’t be mad.”

“That’s not - I told you already, I’m  _ NOT _ gay.”

“Alright, alright. Good luck with the conversion therapy. To your patient, of course.”

“Leave me alone!”

“Fine.” Tankie closed the door behind himself.

On the other side, the nationalist’s stomach felt like a stone. 

_ This was supposed to be my struggle, and now I’ve managed to make it public. He probably didn’t buy what I had to say. I can’t do this alone when someone knows I’m doing it.  _

And so he opened up the book and started reading, but it was miserable. He was barely able to focus, his mind drifting back to panicked thoughts about Tankie. 

\---

Back in the living room, the Communist was doing no better. He was trying to own an anarchist in a Reddit comment section about how the revolutionary vanguard party would be necessary to re-educate the American working class and repair the damage of McCarthy-era red scare politics. But even that, one of the things that gave him happiness, wasn’t cutting it. As he worked his way into the 16th paragraph, he just crumbled. He slouched down in his chair and closed his laptop. 

_ Damn. I guess there’s a chance he likes me back. I just can’t believe it. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to. I don’t know how not to rip this alliance apart after I tell him.  _

_ This is the part where I go back to that comment to stop thinking about him.  _

_ I don’t really want to. _

\---

“What is this?” asked the nationalist, stirring his soup.

“It’s borscht.”

  
“Huh. Very… Red.”

  
“It’s beets. Try putting some sour cream on top, it’s good.”

  
“I didn’t know you could cook like this.”

  
“Well, sometimes there was not much to practice with, but this is still traditional Russian food.”

  
“You’re right. It is pretty good.”

  
“Thank you. So, about that book.”

  
“Come on, we talked about this already.”

  
“Not really. You were very upset.”

  
“No shit, Sherlock. I’m not gay.”

  
“It’s not an offensive thing to suggest you are! There’s nothing wrong with gay people.”

  
“You wouldn’t know.”

  
“Lenin legalized gay marriage, I know enough.”

  
“Just another reason not to be a communist.”

  
Authleft gave him a reproachful glare. “I’m trying to be serious. I’m trying to say - “

“What, you’re gonna say you’re in love with me or something? I’m not a fucking queer. I hate you. I hate this place.” The borsht spilled out onto the table and started to drip to the floor like blood from a fresh cut. 

“What? Don’t have anything to say to defend yourself? I knew it.”

“I - Please don’t go.”

“No. I’m… I’m tired of this place. I just want- I want. I want something to change. I don’t want to be here.” But he sat back down.

The communist got a dish towel and started to mop up the soup. He finished. They sat there in silence across from each other as he finished what was left in his bowl. It couldn’t realistically have been more than 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour to both. 

“I’m sorry.” said Tankie, in a whisper small enough it barely bent the air. 

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for painting with your soup.”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

  
“Okay.”

\---

The sofa creaked a little as they sat down, carefully perched as far as they could from each other. The TV was one of the few things all the extremists had shared, so it was actually nice. The communist brought up his favorite WW2 movie. The voiceover faded in over the black screen, “Anyone who loves freedom owes such a debt to the Red Army that it can never…”   
  


Neither of them cared about the movie. Looking as if he was only settling down to become more comfortable, the communist moved a little closer to the other on the couch. Fluffing up the pillow behind his back, the identitarian shifted towards the center of the sofa. Tankie’s hands shook as he stretched and laid an arm onto the back of the sofa behind Authright, but he took a deep breath, willing them to not betray his feelings. 

“Can I?” asked Authright, and in the dark room, television reflecting blue glow off his eyes, the sentence didn’t need to be finished. Tenderly, he stretched his hands out and cupped the other man’s cheeks as he leaned in to kiss him. Commie pulled him in with the arm around his shoulders. The future, their past, it didn’t matter. Even the guilt that normally tugged at Authright’s stomach when he thought of things like this was gone for a moment as they lost themselves in each other. The movie forgotten, their fingers tangled in each others hair, bodies desperately trying to get as close as possible. Their mouths parted what felt like an eternity later. 

“Do you want to go to my room?” whispered Nazi, but it was barely a question. They both knew the answer. 

\---

Nazi was late to rise, though his partner, whatever their relationship, was later. The watery beams of the morning winter sun shone through the window, and for a while, he was content to just watch the rise and fall of the other man’s back, to trace the curve of his spine with his eyes. Details he hadn’t noticed the previous night jumped out at him, little things. A few freckles. The faded line of a scar tracing his bicep. 

_ I get what he meant when he said “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” about ancom. I could spend eternity in this moment alone. _

Eventually, Authleft broke the rhythm of his breath and, voice groggy with sleep, “Good morning”.

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“I dunno. Probably about the same as you’re feeling right now.”

“Well, I am enjoying myself. So I hope you really do feel the same.”

“Oh, absolutely.” He replied, reaching out to rub his thumb over the other man’s cheek, before they kissed again. “I’ll make breakfast. As an apology for the soup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ending something is always one of the hardest steps.  
> I guess I picked this song because, even though it's a happy ending, it's not like nazi isn't gonna have some weird shit to work through as a result of being a literal fascist. So it's nice because they get to be together. But also bad blue man is fucked up, he's not gonna have a real healthy view on his relationship, not for a while.
> 
> also, yeah, i wrote the scene where they fuck, but i'm separating it off from the main fic.

**Author's Note:**

> the turner diaries is a book about a fascist revolution that's both so self aware about the fact that fascism creates a miserable dystopian world and so badly written that if it adhered to a political ideology any less miserable it would be a joke. yes i'm a thoughtslime fan how did you know


End file.
